Mass Hysteria Persists

While I don't believe the swine flu scare is the main reason for a lack of direction as of late it definitely has hindered some of my current positions. JBLU rallied at the open then gave it nearly all back by the close with the continued lack of travel concerns. NVAX was back up another 25% today as people looked to make a quick dollar on a stock that wouldn't be able to help this situation for at least 12 weeks even if it could do anything. AAPL and AMZN fell slightly helping my positions. Overall I was down half a percent, no big deal but of course I'd rather be up, or have bought back my JBLU puts at the open.

Tomorrow I think is make or break day for the rally. I have to admit I was surprised to have a profit when I checked late in the day as I assumed the scare of Citigroup and Bank of America would have kept the sell off going. Buyers continue to step in on dips. If we had a severe sell off today I would have been inclined to take some risk to the long side going into the GDP announcement. I looked at a lot of stocks I want to buy on the assumption of a more sustained recovery but held off because it would be fairly irresponsible to take on more risk ahead of this announcement when I don't know what the outcome will be.

There are some bleak predictions on GDP, one as low at -8.00%, concensus is around -5.0%. A much better than expected consumer confidence number helped stocks and could help the market absorb a slightly worse than expected GDP number, I feel like as long as it improves over last quarter it should be viewed as good but who knows. I'll see how things react after it comes out tomorrow morning then make a decision. If we react positively and get above 870 I think it could point to a lot more upside.

Total Return for 2009: 130%